In a county filled with colorful banners representing its cities, towns, and neighborhoods, one flag has risen above the rest. After hundreds of residents cast their votes in The Montgonion's online poll, the City of Rockville has claimed the title of Best Flag in Montgomery County among the seventeen entries.

The contest wasn't even close. Rockville's flag took 45.4 percent of the vote, with second place Glen Echo at 18.7 percent and third place Takoma Park at 9.3 percent.

Top three in The Montgonion’s Best Flag in Montgomery County Poll, conducted July 2025

Beyond its popular aesthetics, Rockville's flag is layered with meaning—rooted in Maryland’s colonial past, shaped by heraldic tradition, and, like the Maryland state flag itself, not without controversial elements.

Unlike the Maryland flag, however, the Rockville banner's controversial symbolism has never been a topic of public discourse. No lengthy social media debates, no community listening forums, no mention in any publications we could find. Until now.

Understanding the Symbolism

A new City of Rockville seal and flag were adopted in 1979 and described in the June 13th City of Rockville Newsletter (Vol. 25, no. 12). Every other description of the seal and flag online, including Wikipedia and numerous vexillology websites, derives from that sole source. The Montgonion requested the city's Historic Preservation Division, and non-profit history organization Peerless Rockville, provide information about the creation, adoption, and significance of the flag. Both sent us the 1979 newsletter article and confirmed that it is all they had.

City of Rockville seal and flag, adopted 1979

The City of Rockville seal features a large center shield with three wavy blue diagonal stripes, two wavy white diagonal stripes, and six red "bottony" crosses--three positioned diagonally in each white stripe. The flag is a derivative of the center shield, with the same elements elongated horizontally.

According to the 1979 newsletter article, the center shield's and flag's red, white, and blue color scheme recognizes, "Rockville's place as a four-time winner of the All America City Award." The award is issued annually by the National Civic League, an organization where red, white, and blue are central to its brand and coveted recognition.

Winners of the All American City Award are entitled to use the organization’s distinctive logo. Credit: National Civic League

"The color blue and the wavy lines are symbolic of water and thus Rock Creek, for which Rockville is named," the 1979 newsletter says.

So far, the center shield and flag symbolism descriptions make sense and match the times. Rockville received its fourth All American City award in 1979, the year the seal and flag were adopted, and leveraged the accomplishment into its public identity. With no other historical references, we are left to accept the 1979 narrative about the color scheme and blue wavy lines. But that's not the case with the red bottony crosses.

"The red crosses taken from the Maryland state flag were drawn from the shield of the Crossland family," according to the Rockville newsletter. It continues, "Alicia Crossland was the mother of Sir George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore and the founder of the Catholic colony of Maryland. The red cross was incorporated in the Calvert family shield after Crossland lands were inherited. The cross was quartered in the Calvert shield, as it is used in the Maryland flag, to indicate that the Crossland estates were inherited."

The remainder of the newsletter article describes elements of the seal surrounding the center shield, all with ties to colonial history or Maryland nature, including a small “Rock hawk” with a tiny shield upon its chest bearing the Calvert family gold and black stripes.

The 1979 Rockville newsletter omits some hugely significant history: the civil war and its post-war period, when red and white and the bottony symbol were synonymous with Maryland's secessionist movement, adopted by a Confederate battle brigade with Maryland roots, and could get you arrested for treason in Baltimore. The omission raises questions about the red bottony symbol's prominence in the flag and seal's center shield, and its significance to Rockville.

The Montgonion took a deep dive to find answers. It reaches back centuries and touches some of the most complicated chapters in U.S. and Maryland history. The findings are uncomfortable at best and show evidence of a racist symbol being flown over Rockville City Hall at worst.

The Crosland Cross in Colonial Times

The term "bottony" in a cross generally refers to a design where the ends of each arm are decorated with rounded, button-like shapes, resembling a trefoil. This style is primarily found in heraldry and ecclesiastical art, particularly during the medieval period, and found in many British family crests.

Cecil Calvert (1605-1675), Second Lord Baltimore, is credited for first quartering, or combining, the Calvert family's coat of arms with that of the Crosland family. His grandfather, Leonard Calvert, married Alice Crosland (often misspelled Crossland), around 1575, binding their families' legacies in Maryland history.

The quartered crests, incorporating the six equal vertical stripes (known as a "paly") from the Calvert crest and the bottony cross from the Crosland crest, first know appearance is on a map of Maryland from 1635. The "Calvert-Crosland" crest became the official Great Seal used during the proprietary rule of Maryland by the various Lord Calverts. The reverse of the two-sided seal, recorded in 1648 documents, displays the shield containing the quartered Calvert-Crosland coat of arms.

After 1776, when Maryland declared independence and established statehood, the Great Seal was disbanded for a contemporary design that shed colonial symbols and connections. In 1854, however, the Calvert-Crosland quartered shield was returned to the reverse side of the seal, and the design, copied from the original 1648 Great Seal, is officially used by the state of Maryland to this day.

The Crosland Cross and the Civil War

During the Civil War, Maryland was a deeply divided border state, with allegiances split between North and South. Army regiments once united split in two and fought against one another on battlefields from South Carolina to Pennsylvania, with neighbors fighting neighbors and even family members on opposing sides.

Throughout the Civil War countless banners and flags led troops into battle. Individual battalions and soldiers wore and displayed many unique symbols representing their allegiance to the Confederacy and their pride in their home town or state. The colors red and white were very commonly associated with Confederate symbols across all of the southern states.

According to the state of Maryland website, "During the war, Maryland-born Confederate soldiers used both the red-and-white colors and the cross bottony design from the Crosland quadrants of the Calvert coat of arms as a unique way of identifying their place of birth. Pins in the cross bottony shape were worn on uniforms, and the headquarters flag of the Maryland-born Confederate general Bradley T. Johnson was a red cross bottony on a white field."

Headquarters flag (guidon) of the Maryland Line, commanded by Brigadier General Bradley T. Johnson. The flag is in the collection of the American Civil War Museum, Richmond, Virginia. Credit: American Civil War Museum

Johnson, a native of Frederick, was a staunch Confederate and led the 1st Maryland Infantry, CSA at the 1862 Battle of Front Royal, where Union and Confederate Marylanders fought one another. Of the hundreds of images of actual Confederate battle flags and emblems available online and in books, notably only Johnson’s flag includes the red bottony cross unadorned in a field of white.

Post-War Flags and Reunification

In the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, Maryland struggled to come together. The colors red and white and the Crosland cross were so strongly associated with rebellion that displaying them could lead to accusations—or even formal charges—of treason. For a time, it was viewed as an act of defiance against the Union, and it carried real legal and social risk.

In the 1860s, Maryland did not have an official flag. However, the gold and black palys from the crest on the 1854 Great Seal, originating from the seventeen century Calvert crest, had become a well-recognized unofficial flag and was commonly seen in both military and civilian motifs. In 1889, the Maryland Fifth Regiment, consisting primarily of Maryland-born former Confederate officers and soldiers, combined the gold-and-black palys and red bottony cross into a new regimental flag that gained popularity.

Finally in 1904 Maryland officially adopted its now beloved but complex state flag, combining both the Calvert and Crossland quarters. The flag's design and the inclusion of symbols that had become synonymous with both sides of the battlefield was a purposeful gesture of post-war reconciliation. It was a controversial decision at the time and has remained a topic of debate ever since. A 2015 Washingtonian article highlighted this uneasy history, noting that the Crosland arms “were embraced by secessionist Marylanders as a symbol of their allegiance.” The Baltimore Magazine followed suit, calling the Crosland cross a “banner of Confederate sympathy.”

The controversy regarding the Maryland flag isn't something the state shies away from, past or present. In fact, Maryland leans into it. "The flag excels as a state banner because it commemorates the vision of the founders while it reminds us of the struggle to preserve the Union. It is a unique symbol of challenges met and loyalties restored, a flag of unity and reconciliation for all the state's citizens," says the Maryland website.

Rockville's Crosland Cross Controversy

The Montgonion was unable to locate any sources that could speak to the intent of including the six red Crosland Crosses so prominently on the center shield of the Rockville seal, and by extension the focal points within the broad white stripes of the Rockville flag. Whether the design was chosen mostly for aesthetics, or as a meaningful symbol, may never be known. What is known, however, is that their inclusion and a historical review leads to some stark observations:

The flag with a design most closely resembling the Rockville flag's red bottony crosses in fields of white is that of Maryland-born Confederate General Bradley Johnson. After the war he remained unapologetic about his Confederate service and criticized Reconstruction as harmful to the South.
Whereas the Maryland flag intentionally combined the Union-associated palys and Confederate-associated bottony, the Rockville flag's only historic or political symbol is the bottony. The Rockville seal does incorporate Union-associated palys, but in a tiny shield adorning a hawk, diminutive to its bottony-based center shield and dwarfed by other colonial and local symbols.
Maryland introduced its new flag in 1904 by calling out its intentionally controversial and provocative design and has continued that dialogue through the decades. Rockville makes no mention of the bottony's Civil War association whatsoever, only including the colonial and natural history in its 1979 seal and flag description.

In our interviews with Rockville elected officials, City staff, and local historical societies, The Montgonion found some people genuinely ignorant of the history behind Rockville's seal and flag and its ties to the Confederacy, and others who were quietly in the know from having conducted their own research or hearing of it spoken behind closed doors. Perhaps that is why the Rockville flag remained under the radar after the murder of George Floyd in 2020 and the subsequent surge in efforts to remove Confederate monuments and rename public spaces that honored the Confederacy.

In the past five years Marylanders took decisive action, following intense public discourse, to remove public icons celebrating or commemorating Maryland's role in the Confederacy. The 13-ft “Talbot Boys” Confederate Monument in Easton honoring Confederate soldiers was removed in 2022. A plaque inside the Maryland State House that included Confederate flag symbolism and language that treated both sides of the Civil War neutrally was voted for removal in June 2020 and subsequently taken down as part of a push by the State House Trust. At the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maury Hall, named for a confederate naval officer, was renamed in 2022 to honor former President Jimmy Carter.

In Montgomery County, in June 2021, the County Council renamed three streets previously honoring Confederate generals. Jeb Stuart Road and Jeb Stuart Court were renamed after Geneva Mason. Jubal Early Court was renamed for William Dove. These quiet streets with Potomac addresses are 2.5 miles from Rockville City Hall, where the Rockville flag with its six Crosland Crosses in broad white stripes flies alongside the Montgomery County flag, Maryland flag, and U.S. flag.

Rockville City Hall, July 2024. Credit: Google Maps

Flags are more than just fabric. They are declarations of who we are, where we come from, what we stand for, and what we choose to elevate. For Rockville, winning the Best Flag in Montgomery County poll should open the door to a community conversation long overdue.

About the Author: Glenn Fellman is the creator and publisher of The Montgonion. He is a life-long resident of Rockville the Zip Code, but not the City. This is his first bylined article in The Montgonion.

Primary Sources
Want to learn more with just a screen tap? Start here:

Myths of Maryland: The Calvert, the Crossland, and the Civil War, Zachary Gardiner, October 7, 2023 (presentation video)

Maryland’s Flag may be more Symbolic than you Realize, Baltimore Police Museum, December 2022.

Confederate History of the Maryland Flag, Reverdy Johnson, March 5, 2015

State of Maryland Flag History Page